More than 5m angry at energy giants: List of gripes against big six revealed for the first time

The most common gripes were issues with bills, metering, customer service, switching and payment (Picture: File/PA)

About 15,000 complaints are made to the ‘big six’ energy companies each day, it was revealed today.

Unhappy customers took issue with energy giants British Gas, EDF, E.On, Npower, ScottishPower and SSE a total of 5.5million times last year.

The most common gripes were issues with bills, metering, customer service, switching and payment.

It is the first time the big six have disclosed the direct number of complaints they receive in a year.

Consumer watchdog Which? has launched a campaign, and online petition, calling for ‘six fixes’ for the ‘broken energy market’.

These include addressing dwindling consumer trust and asking energy companies to end practices that unfairly increase costs.

Richard Lloyd, Which? executive director, said: ‘Millions of people are unhappy with the service they receive from the suppliers which, combined with low levels of trust, is yet more evidence that more must be done to fix the broken energy market.

‘Next month, we want the regulators to refer the energy market to the competition and markets authority and launch a full-scale inquiry.’ Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, added: ‘Energy companies are letting down millions of households with poor service and high prices.

Industry body Energy UK said when dealing with almost 27million customers ‘things can occasionally go wrong’.

Npower topped the list, with 1,383,650 grievances. It was followed by EDF with 1,240,005, British Gas with 1,235,550 and E.On with 929,230.

SSE and ScottishPower received 482,582 and 308,648 respectively.

Npower said it supported the ideas by Which? and was doing several already.

It was ‘making good progress’ and would give an update soon.

‘We know we let many of our customers down, following issues with our new billing system and our priority is to put these issues right,’ it added.